


Sleeping Beast Within

by IscaRedspider



Series: Sparkpulse AU [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Morse Code, cat shenanigans, this is what happens when you spend too much time with cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28919529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IscaRedspider/pseuds/IscaRedspider
Summary: Bumblebee and Cheetor are chilling together on a nice quiet evening :3
Relationships: Bumblebee & Cheetor (Transformers)
Series: Sparkpulse AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021447
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Sleeping Beast Within

It’s a nice and calm evening today. No Decepticons activities. Bumblebee and Cheetor are relaxing on a random ledge above the cafeteria, watching everyone chilling with their energon. Cheetor is currently in their spotted ray-cheetah alt form, laying with their limbs tucked underneath the body. A position which everyone lovingly calls a “loaf form”. Bumblebee is beside his feline friend, pressing onto their side and mimicking the same position.

Both Special Operations agents were talking about random stuff, from patrol and mission discussions to random shenanigans that happened to other Autobots. Life is never boring in their department, even during the night considering a big chunk of agents are nocturnal cybertronians, including Bumblebee himself.

Bumblebee slightly nudges Cheetor to make them look at him. Cheetor is hard-of-hearing, and their hearing can vary from moderate to severe. They have hearing aids, but sometimes they are not much help. So everyone quickly learned that they must make sure that Cheetor sees them before talking to make lip-reading and signing easier. 

“How was your patrol by the way?” Bumblebee asks his diurnal friend.“Did you find any interesting stuff among the ruins?” 

“Nope, whatever was in that building eroded long ago.” Cheetor sighs, but then grins a second later. “I  **still** can’t believe you found that super old board game intact!” they exclaimed, lightly bumping the minibot with their nose.

Bumblebee giggles at the display of affection, he loves little things like this. He bumps Cheetor back with his forehead. “I know right! It was kept in such good condition that even acid rains and stuff didn’t eat it.”

That moment, Jazz enters the room and as soon as he sees the pair of “cats” on the ledge above, he bursts into laughter.

“I must admit, Cheetor, I never expected you to start teaching our youngest member the way of the cat!” the head of Special Operations Department chortles, “Bumblebee, please be honest! Can you purr already?”

Cheetor wheezes at Jazz’s question, while Bumblebee grins widely. 

“Well, I tried, but apparently I can only growl.” the minibot answers with all his honesty. “It doesn’t feel like I was supposed to be a feline.”

“Well, it doesn’t stop you from being a cat anyway!” Jazz grins, gesturing at Bumblebee’s current “loaf” position. Cheetor wheezes harder, making them sound like a kettle from Wheeljack’s lab. That caused all three to burst into laughter. After that, they exchanged a few words before Jazz went to grab his energon cube. The minibot and the beastformer keep chilling on the ledge, observing everyone below them.

Imitation is an interesting thing indeed. It’s a natural process that allows a living being to fit better in their social environment. 

It’s not like Cheetor was teaching Bumblebee feline behavior on purpose. It just happened because the minibot spent a lot of time with them and other Autobot felines since he made amends with Steeljaw.

Bumblebee found himself adopting some cat mannerisms, and this is when his beast protocols surfaced. Both Perceptor and Botanica are absolutely sure that the minibot was bound to be a beastformer, but lack of resources forced him to take a vehicle-type alt form.

This explains a lot of things, like his quadrupedal mode that could be an attempt of his body to compensate for the lack of beast-type alt form. Or how he feels like he’s missing some parts, like additional limbs. 

Bumblebee is sure he was supposed to have wings because every time he swings with his cables, the overwhelming nostalgia makes his spark ache and his back feels abnormally light. After a while this feeling grew into an itch and just swinging around the Stronghold wouldn't satisfy it anymore.

Windblade could see the pained look on his face, so she decided to indulge him and take him skydiving. Just flying up with her already feels so much better. And the moment Windblade turns off her engines and they start falling is pure joy, making him tear up every time.

The wind rushing past him, the feeling of flying, the stimulant rush. Bumblebee forgets about all his insecurities and worries, feeling that he belongs in the sky. 

This is the closest to flying he ever got, or will ever get as sad as it sounds. 

Bumblebee shakes his head, there is no reason to wallow about things he can’t have, he has to work with what he’s given. That’s why he can’t wait for Windblade to come back from her mission, so they can go skydiving again.

The anticipation quickly fades as the door opens to the cafeteria revealing Sideswipe and Sunstreaker going in. The minibot tenses upon seeing them, or more like Sunstreaker. Those two are not buddies, not at all.

“Bee, are you okay? Your optics have slits.” Cheetor’s voice pulls Bumblebee’s attention to themself. Pupils turning into slits, another feature of a beastformer, that happens when one is angry, shocked, feral, exposed to light, or in alt mode.

“I’m okay, it’s just...well him.” he hisses at Sunstreaker below, who seems like he didn’t realize that Bumblebee is in the room too. “I still don’t know what I did to him to receive such treatment.”

“He’s always been such a slaghead as long as I remember.” Cheetor sighs. “But it’s undeniable that he's really out there to get you for no reason. Don’t worry, I will eat his shins if he tries to do anything to you!”

Bumblebee smiles at support, he really appreciates it. Though this smile fades quickly because the problem is still there and he has no idea what to do with this.

Sunstreaker really dislikes the minibot for some reason and will grab any chance to harass him. Thankfully his friends, especially Windblade, made it crystal clear that if he hurt Bumblebee, Sunstreaker won’t come out in one piece from this.

Still, Bumblebee feels that animosity directed at him from the yellow gladiator’s spark.

That’s just so unfair that it hurts!

Thankfully, before Bumblebee could start fully seething about this, Blaster with his cassettes enter the cafeteria next. Cheetor greets the fellow Special Ops members, which pulls the minibot out of the spiral of negative emotions.

Suddenly, the optics of Bumblebee, Cheetor, Steeljaw, and Nightstalker were locked on each other. For a few seconds, they stared. Everyone who noticed this stopped doing what they were doing because they know what will happen next.

Who will run first? 

Who will start the game?!

The next second, Nightstalker bolts from the spot they were standing into the Stronghold corridors. Steeljaw jumps after them, followed by Bumblebee (on all fours) and Cheetor jumping from the ledge.

The chase has begun, leaving laughing bots in the cafeteria behind!

The stomping is so intense that someone might think it’s Dinobots, not three cats and Bumblebee are running through corridors. It never was said out loud, but those games did help Bumblebee to be more confident with his quadrupedal mode, making him even more agile.

After a few more turns of running, Steeljaw catches Nightstalker. Now it’s his turn to be chased. He turns around and runs in the opposite direction, into the medical wing.

A medbay door opens, and Ratchet would almost be thrown on the floor and stomped if he didn’t see Steeljaw coming. With a yelp, he quickly jumps back into the room, and the rest of the group runs by him. He can only shake his head as he can already foresee someone getting hurt in this. But he cannot deny that cats need to get their zoomies out...though he still can’t believe they dragged Bumblebee into their games.

The three beastformers and the minibot keep running until Bumblebee finally catches Steeljaw. 

“You’ll never catch me!” the minibot proclaims as he takes an instant sharp turn and starts running at full speed.

“Hey!” Cheetor yelps, not expecting such a fast reaction from the minibot. ‘Heh, he’s getting better!’ they think to themself as they dart after him. Being the fastest quadrupedal out of Autobots, they quickly catch up with the minibot, almost being in their reach.

Bumblebee feels that Cheetor is getting close to him, and takes another unexpected turn to avoid being caught. But surprises won't end here.

Just ahead of him, the door opens and Optimus Prime steps into the corridor. Bumblebee sees it too late and slams into his leg at full speed. Optimus loses balance and falls onto his back. Cheetor, who was right behind Bumblebee, couldn’t stop in time and proceeded to step all over their leader, including his face, before sliding into the wall. Steeljaw and Nightstalker, who were much farther behind, heard the commotion and slowed down, only slightly bumping into Optimus.

“What happened?! Are you okay Optimus?” Prowl rushed from the same room to help his friend sit up.

“I am alright.” Optimus reassures and then looks at the yellow culprit, who is laughing, sitting on the floor right now.

“I’m sorry, Prime! I didn’t see you!” Bumblebee somehow utters the apology between laughs. He was so focused on getting away from Cheetor on his tail that he didn't even pay attention to what was in front of him.

“I’m sorry too, for stepping on you!” Cheetor, who is giggling, apologizes next. “Looks like we got carried away.”

This earned a fit of giggles from everyone. Bumblebee’s laugh is simply contagious, no one can resist, not even serious bots like Prowl.

“This was bound to happen I feel. Though, I wouldn’t expect Bumblebee to be the one throwing me off my feet.” Optimus chuckles, he turns to Bumblebee, who despite the laughing fit, is cradling his left arm. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m okay!” Bumblebee exclaims, trying to throw his arms up, but his left arm quickly responded with pain from sharp movement. “Ow, ow, ow!” he hissed. “Okay, maybe I’m not, looks like I dislocated my shoulder or something.” he corrected with a giggle. Sure, it hurts, but this entire situation is too amusing to him to focus on the pain.

“Oh no, Bee!” Cheetor feels bad for their friend. “I will make sure he’ll make it to medbay!”

“Good. So what did we learn today?” Prowl asks the youngest member of Autobots.

“I learned that if slam into Prime’s leg hard enough --” he didn’t even finish as everyone erupted into laughs again.

After everyone calmed down, Cheetor with the cassettes helped Bumblebee to get up and they went to medbay. 

When they entered Ratchet’s domain, the medic already could guess what happened. But he had no idea who fell victim to their shenanigans.

“Let me get this straight. You, Bumblebee, tripped Optimus Prime? And damaged your left arm in the process?” he asks in disbelief. The only answer he received is another row of laughter from three beastformers and one minibot which served as confirmation.

“Aright, Bumblebee, you get into the berth, and your three are out.” Ratchet instructed. The minibot nodded to his playmates and they went back to their game, chasing after Cheetor.

Then he walks over the berth, Ratchet helps him to get on it with his magnetokinesis, before proceeding to inspect the injury. The medic carefully popped Bumblebee’s shoulder into the socket. The pain was lifted.

“Thanks, Ratchet.” Bumblebee says sheepishly.

“You should be more careful with their games. You are not as durable as they are, Bumblebee and they tend to play rough at times.” Ratchet grumbles.

“C’mon, they never hurt me, and it’s fun!” Bumblebee protests, he doesn’t like to be reminded of his condition though he knows this comes out of concern. “Alright, alright I will.”

Ratchet nods, satisfied with the answer. “Hold still, I will check if your arm sustained any more injuries.”

Bumblebee decided to check radio channels as he waited. Maybe he can hear if Windblade is coming back soon. After swapping multiple channels, Bumblebee stumbled upon a strange signal.

The signal is transmitted through a channel that he never saw before. As if it was turned off until someone began using it recently. And the signal itself is something he never heard Autobots or Decepticons using. It sounded like a series of beeps, short and long. 

“Is something wrong?” Ratchet asks, noticing the minibots confused expression. Bumblebee opens the radio channel with the medic, letting him listen to that signal.

“Did you hear something like this before?” he asks the medic. He’s one of the eldest Autobots, surely he heard something like this, right? 

But Ratchet is confused as much as Bumblebee, “I have no idea. We should notify the High Command about this. Who knows if Decepticreeps decided to invent another way of secret communication….after I finish with your arm.”

The minibot nods and continues listening to the signal. He can’t help but feel it seems oddly familiar to him. After multiple passes, Bumblebee notices it has a specific pattern, that looks like this:

**... .... .- -.. --- .-- .-.. ..- .-. -.- . .-. --..-- / .-- . / -. . . -.. / - --- / - .- .-.. -.- .-.-.-**

After he got the pattern, much to Bumblebee’s surprise, his system recognized it and began deciphering. When he saw the meaning of the message, his spark almost jumped out of his chest.

“WHAT?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to KittyKatzVillage for proofreading.  
> Kudos are very appreciated)
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time <3


End file.
